Paper Fan
by Orodruin
Summary: Kakashi was messed up before he even met his father. An incident during the Chuunin exams gives the Yellow Flash insight into the dark, uncertain history of his young student. Rated for violence.


Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

As far as I'm aware, I'm the first one to think up a background for Kakashi that's anything like this... which is why I had to share it. With this sort of background, I think it opens up a lot of new ground to build Kakashi's character from... but I'm clearly biased, I'd like to hear what other people think.

Paper Fan

_R. Winters_

When the girl pulled a paper fan from her sleeve, Kakashi froze, staring, for just an instant. Her red-painted lips turned up in a smirk and something inside the six-year-old snapped. Anger like he'd never felt boiled up inside of him and he was driven forward with a desire to hurt—to _kill_.

Kakashi had killed on missions before—twice, although his teacher had tried to tell him repeatedly that the first time hadn't really counted. But it was the first time he'd ever _wanted_ to take a life.

He was barely conscious of his actions through the haze of red around his mind. All he could see was the pale hand gripping the fan—the painted lips smiling as deceitful words poured out of them.

He instinctively staved off a cluster of shuriken, and dodged around an earth-jutsu, appearing behind the kunoichi. His hand moved as if driven by some force other than his mind, but the girl spun around, blocking his kunai with her fan and twisting the metal-ribbed weapon to drive it from his hand. At the same time, she countered with a swift kick off her leading leg.

Kakashi's visage disappeared and he was behind her again, only this time his kunai had struck true. The girl's mouth gaped open—if she screamed, he didn't hear it. All of his senses were focused on the paper fan, ripped and blood-stained, as it fell to the ground.

Things moved around him without his notice. The audience roared for the youngest Chuunin candidate in generations, but Kakashi didn't hear over the beating of his heart. A group of men came in to collect the girl, carrying her away on a gurney, but Kakashi didn't notice.

Someone called his name several times. It wasn't until a large hand weighted on his shoulder that he blinked. His eyes didn't leave the paper fan, but suddenly his surroundings came into focus again and he took in the murmuring of the crowd, the broken earth under his feet and the cool wind that blew through the open air.

"Kakashi? Are you okay?" his sensei's voice was low with concern and the hand on his shoulder alternately tightened and loosed its grip. "We need to move… they'll be starting the next match soon."

Without a word, the six-year-old tore his eyes from the fan and preceded his teacher from the field. He didn't notice the tears wetting the mask over his cheeks.

Despite his teacher telling him he should, Kakashi couldn't focus on the rest of the matches for the day. Once the first round was over, his teacher steered him back to the hotel they were staying in. Kakashi didn't offer a word of argument as he was steered to the bed and sat down.

The man towered over him, hands on his hips and a worried frown written all across his face.

"Kakashi…"

The boy frowned back up at him, black eyes somber.

His teacher sighed and slumped a little, pacing back and forth twice before sitting on the bed next to him with a huff. "What was that all about, Kakashi?" He finally blurted, turning halfway around to face his young student, "I've never seen you fight like that before."

Kakashi shrugged.

"And afterwards," the man continued, undaunted, "What was wrong with you, Kakashi?"

Another shrug and his teacher let out an aggravated sigh, falling back on the bed with a soft thump. The man worried his scalp for a while, roughly pulling at his own hair in frustration.

"Kakashi…"

"I… was thinking about my mother," the boy said after several minutes.

The man paused, head tilting slightly to one side, peering curiously at his student.

"I don't remember much…" He remembered her pale hands with long, slender fingers, and how it had felt when he touched him—how the coarse calluses had bruised his skin when she gripped his wrist, and the sharp sting of her palm connecting with his face.

"She… carried a fan, like that girl." He remembered how she'd used the sharp ribs to slice cleanly through the neck of one of Konoha's sentries, and how she'd disarmed his father with one flick of the wrist before thrusting in for the kill…

"Do you remember your mother, sensei?" The boy asked, flopping back on the bed beside his teacher and frowning up at the ceiling.

The man nodded shortly, "… Yes. She raised me after my father died… she followed him shortly before I graduated from the Academy, though."

"She was from Konoha, right?"

"She was a kunoichi," the man confirmed with another nod.

"Mine was, too," Kakashi said. He paused, then added, "Only… _she_ was from Stone."

The man raised an eyebrow, propping himself up slightly so he could see his student's face a little more fully, "I didn't know that. You were born in Earth Country, then?"

"I don't know the details," Kakashi said evasively, "She brought me to Konoha as part of a mission… I don't know the details about that either." That had been when he'd first met his father—Konoha's White Fang.

His teacher frowned, "What…?"

Kakashi shrugged. "I don't know." He wasn't sure whether she'd been ordered to kill his father or if that had been her own idea. "We went to o-tousama's house first, and he killed her."

The man's eyes widened, "Your father? Right there?"

The boy met his eyes, frowning slightly. "She tried to kill him, first, sensei. O-tousama was just a better shinobi. Of course, he is the White Fang, so it isn't surprising that she couldn't kill him."

Even after four years, the experience was still clear in his mind. He hadn't been afraid, not to see his mother's body slumped on the floor, or to have her blood splattered across his face. It hadn't occurred him to be afraid. All of his life he'd been told that the man was a monster—he'd endured more than his share of abuse and neglect over his parentage.

Looking back, Kakashi supposed he just hadn't been smart enough to be afraid.

"_Aren't you going to cry for her?"_ Was the first thing the man said to him directly.

Then again, at two and a half, Kakashi hadn't been a stranger to death. Before he'd even been able to walk, his mother had tried twice to kill him—Kakashi didn't remember, the woman had aborted both attempts on the Tsuchikage's orders. Even so, she hadn't felt maltreating the child was remiss in her duty in any way—it hadn't been unusual for the toddler to go days or weeks without seeing her, and long enough without food that he'd been rushed to the hospital on a number of occasions.

Kakashi had shook his head, feeling as though he had nothing to lose from doing so, anyway.

"_What's your name?" _His father had asked after a moment, looking much less intimidating as the chakra dissipated from around him.

"_Hatake Kakashi,"_ Kakashi had replied promptly.

"_She gave you my name?"_ He hadn't been able to read the surprise in his father's voice, but the man's eyebrows rose and his gaze was intent.

"_She didn't want to give me hers,"_ he'd explained.

Kakashi supposed he must have said something right, because his father hadn't killed him. Instead, the man had taken him with to report the incident and Kakashi began to understand what it meant to be the son of the White Fang in Konoha.

"I'm… glad," Kakashi said at last, more to himself than to his teacher.

"Glad?"

"I wouldn't want to serve under the Tsuchikage," Kakashi mused, "And… I like living with everybody in Konoha."

He liked living in a place where when people saw him and thought about his father, they responded with kindness and respect. He would live there the rest of his life—someplace he wouldn't have to worry about being hated for his parentage.

Because the White Fang was a hero, and he was the son of _that_ hero, not the broken paper fan, splattered with warm blood.


End file.
